“ “Our goal is to produce one gigawatt of renewable energy
capacity that is cheaper than coal. We are optimistic this can be done
in years, not decades.” [...] said Larry Page, Google Co-founder
and President of Products.”
—
“Cheap renewable energy is not only critical for the environment but also vital for economic development
in many places where there is limited affordable energy of any kind," added Sergey Brin, Google Co-founder and
President of Technology.”

A model for future decisions. The central question
is, what are the optimal energy storage routes?

“Mike Strizki lives in the nation's [U.S.A.] first solar-hydrogen house.
The technology this civil engineer has been able to string together
- solar panels, a hydrogen fuel cell, storage tanks, and a piece of
equipment called an electrolyzer - provides electricity to his home
year-round, even on the cloudiest of winter days.

“Mr. Strizki's monthly utility bill is zero - he's off the power
grid - and his system creates no carbon-dioxide emissions. Neither does
the fuel-cell car parked in his garage, which runs off the hydrogen
his system creates.”
—
“Romm is an advocate for clean-energy use - in recent books and
articles he advocates a sharp cut in greenhouse-gas emissions within
10 years - but he's characterized hydrogen as an overhyped distraction
that isn't ready yet to help toward that goal. He supports continued
hydrogen research, but other technologies that are more developed could
help the Earth much more and much sooner, he says.”

“The study revealed that as temperatures decreased centuries
ago during a period called the Little
Ice Age, the number of wars increased, famine occurred and the population
declined.”
—
“Brecke, Zhang and colleagues in Hong Kong, China and the United
Kingdom perceived a possible connection between temperature change and
wars because changes in climate affect water supplies, growing seasons
and land fertility, prompting food shortages. These shortages could
lead to conflict -- local uprisings, government destabilization and
invasions from neighboring regions -- and population decline due to
bloodshed during the wars and starvation.”

“Today the group advises French towns interested in horses for
city services. One project in northern France involves a pick-up route
for glass bottles in the seaside resort of Trouville.”
—
“The project is backed by the Regional Horse Promotion Commission,
which holds an annual convention in Trouville to promote horses for collecting
recyclables, street sweeping, and even transporting children to school.”

“Much of this enthusiasm stems from the widespread but misguided
belief that what Beijing says goes[...] ”
—
“ Record growth necessarily requires the gargantuan consumption
of resources, but in China energy use has been especially unclean and
inefficient, with dire consequences. The coal that has powered China’s
economic growth, for example, is also choking its people. As much as
90% of sulphur dioxide emissions and 50% of particulate emissions are
the result of coal use.”

“ "All the captains in the strait were warned about the
storm at 1715 (9:15 a.m. Saturday EST) on November 10," Stepanenko
said. "All of them had enough time to leave the dangerous area."
”
—
“A severe storm broke a Russian oil tanker in two between the
Azov and Black Seas on Sunday, spilling fuel oil in what a Russian official
said was an "environmental disaster."

“Russia's state-run Vesti-24 channel quoted the latest data from
state environment agency Rosprirodnadzor as saying some 2,000 tonnes
of fuel oil had spilt.”

Then come the excuses:

“But Emergencies Ministry spokesman Viktor Beltsov told Reuters
not more than 1,200 tonnes had leaked into the sea.”
—
“ "This problem may take a few years to solve. Fuel oil is
a heavy substance and it is now sinking to the seabed," he said.”
—
“The likely effects of the spill were not immediately clear. A
spill over 700 tonnes is considered large, but the biggest ones run
into the tens or even hundreds of thousands.”
—
“ The hull of another oil tanker, Volganeft-123, cracked after
being hit by high waves. Maxim Stepanenko, Novorossiisk transport prosecutor,
told Russian television this tanker was afloat and its oil products
were not leaking.”

“The tanker, designed primarily for rivers and in service since
1978, was carrying 4,000 tonnes of fuel oil in total, officials were
quoted by media as saying.”

Who cares? The world as a dustbin.

"Almost at the same time as the Volganeft-139 broke up, a freighter
carrying 2,000 tonnes of sulphur sank in the same storm, off the port
of Kavkaz overlooking the Kerch Strait from the Russian side."
....
"Several hours later, another freighter carrying sulphur sank off
Kavkaz..."

But don’t worry...

“ "Sulphur is a very inert chemical, and we hope that in
the water it will not form any substances dangerous to humans,"
Mitvol said.”

“Emissions from ocean-going ships are responsible for about
60,000 deaths a year from heart and lung-related cancers, according
to research published on Wednesday that calls for tougher fuel standards.

“Shanghai, Singapore and Hong Kong, three of the world's five
busiest ports, were likely to suffer disproportionate impacts from ship-related
emissions, said the study, published in Environmental Science and Technology,
a journal of the American Chemical Society.

“For a long time there's been this perception that ship emissions
are out there in the ocean and they don't really affect anyone on land
and I think this study shows that this is clearly false," said
David Marshall, senior counsel at the Boston-based Clean Air Task Force,
which co-commissioned the study. ”

Medieval church is moved to allow strip mining.
Image credit: mariograul

“A 700-year-old church began its slow journey to a new home Thursday,
moving at just over one mph atop a huge flatbed truck as it was transported
from an eastern German village being turned over to open-pit coal mining.

“The Emmaus Church, first mentioned in historical documents in 1297, reached
the edge of its home village of Heuersdorf outside Leipzig on its way to the town of
Borna, some seven miles away.”

—
“The coal mining company Mibrag is paying $4.2 million to move
the church after the regional legislature approved plans to mine some
50 million tons of coal to supply the electrical power station at Lippendorf
near Leipzig.

“Village authorities fought the destruction of the town for years,
but lost in Germany's Constitutional Court in 2005. Most of the 320
residents have already been resettled.”

“ [...] Indeed, the German Federal Institute for Geosciences
had for decades indicated that the German black coal reserves comprise
23 to 24 billion tonnes. In the year 2004, this was adjusted to 183
million tonnes, i.e. reduced by 99 percent. By way of explanation, it
was noted that speculative resources were now no longer taken into account.
In the intensive debate over the future of German black coal mining,
this data played no role whatsoever, although the debate as to whether
mining should continue at a constant level was thus done away with.
For lignite, there have also been dramatic devaluations of more than
80 percent. Germany is the world's largest lignite producer. There are
similar tendencies, if not on such a massive scale, in Great Britain
and Poland, for example” [Quoted from energywatchgroup.org]